CHAPTER 68 MATT

68

Matt

"I'M SO SORRY, MATT," Gabby whispered again.

Matt glanced up at the rearview mirror, caught sight of Sally's lifeless eyes, and had to turn away. He couldn't bear to look at her. This was his fault, all of it. He loaded them in the car. He raced out of there. He should have confronted Peterson there in the street, set him straight. Took the guns and sent them all home. Ellie certainly would have, but instead, he ran, and now Sally was dead.

Not just Sally—

Norman Heaton

Eisa Heaton

Lynn Tatum

Gracie and Oscar

Probably Ellie, too

—all dead on his watch.

And those were the ones he knew about. He'd heard the sporadic gunfire, the shouting, same as the others.

Gabby squeezed his arm. "We shouldn't stay out here. It's not safe."

"Won't he see the car, you stupid fuck?" Josh craned his head and looked out what was left of the back window at the street. "Maybe we should move it before you get the rest of us killed."

Matt felt his skin grow hot. He fought the urge to get out, yank Josh from the back, and beat the shit out of him. Most likely, he killed his family and Eisa Heaton. It was her death that triggered Peterson. Maybe he should have left Josh to them. Maybe it wasn't too late to do exactly that. Was street justice really such a bad thing? For someone like him?

"Matt?"

Gabby was staring at him.

He was gripping the steering wheel with enough force to turn his knuckles white, some part of him wanting it to be Josh's neck. Every inch of him was trembling.

"We can't stay in the car, baby," she said softly, stroking the fine hairs on the back of his wrist.

Matt released the wheel, drew in a deep breath.

He needed to focus, stay on point. It wasn't his place to pass judgment on Josh any more than it was Stu Peterson's. He needed to see this through, get them all to safety, then let the system do what it was designed to do.

Matt looked up and down the street. There was no sign of Peterson or the others, but that didn't mean they were far. Gabby was right; they couldn't stay out here. Frankly, Josh was right, too. He needed to do something with the car. "Give me a second."

Before Gabby could respond, Matt got out, slammed the door behind him, and ran up the porch.

Ellie kept a spare key hidden in the base of a potted plant that looked like it died around the same time Ronald Reagan left office. Matt's hand was still shaking as he fished it out. When he went to put it in the lock, he realized the door was already open. Not much, only an inch or so, but Ellie would have never left it like that.

He took out his gun and nudged the door open further with the tip of his shoe. The light spilled in across the dark living room bright enough to illuminate the dust caught in the air. "Ellie? It's me, Matt. Are you here?"

As with all old houses, the bones of Ellie's house creaked and ticked, but he heard nothing else as he stepped inside.

There were muddy footprints leading across the living room toward the kitchen in back, small drops of blood, too. Matt crouched to get a better look; the blood was still wet.

"How do I know you're okay?" Ellie said in a low voice from somewhere to Matt's right. This was followed by the pump of a shotgun. A shadow moved, and as Matt turned slowly he saw her partially hidden in the gloom. She was standing in the far corner of the room behind a recliner, the shotgun pointed at him. The only light in the room came from Ellie's aquarium, a hazy, misty blue rolling over the side of her face, which was crusted with blood and darkening bruises. Her hair was a frizzled mess, half pulled out of her usual ponytail. Her eyes were wide, maniacal. She held the gun steady, though. "At least four people have tried to kill me in under an hour. How do I know you're not number five?"

"Ellie, it's me, Matt. I—"

"I know who the hell you are. That doesn't seem to matter much, not today," she fired back. "Not ten minutes ago, the sweet old lady who lives next door came at me with a butcher knife. Ten minutes before that, a green Prius tried to run me down; that was Ed Philips, the bastard was smiling when he came at me. Circled around twice before I ducked back in the trees and lost him. Ran into a hiker out in the woods. Whole bottom half of his face was covered in blood, his shirt, too, none of it his. He told me he had an argument with his girlfriend, they'd been camping out near the falls. Said she started screaming about him cheating and tried to cut his pecker off—he told me he had to defend himself. He bit her to death. Told me that right before he lunged at me like some damn zombie in a bad movie. I had to kill him, Matt. Didn't give me no choice. None of them compares to Edgar Newton. I'm not ready to talk about him just yet. I didn't get a chance to process what he did before someone blew out the tires on my cruiser and started taking shots at me. Soldiers, Matt. Goddamn soldiers out on Route 112. Everyone has gone crazy, so how do I know you're okay?"

Matt looked at his hands, thought about what he wanted to do to Josh just minutes earlier, what he still wanted to do to him. "I took a psychology class in college, and our professor asked a question once. He wanted to know if a crazy person knew they were crazy, then he told us about a man who checked himself into the ER with abdominal pain. The man told the attending nurse he was pregnant, and when she examined him, she found a large slice in his gut, from his belly button to his nipple. He'd stuffed a doll in there, the hair was sticking out. He looked her right in the eye and asked if she could save his baby."

"Holy fuck, Matt."

He licked his chapped lips. Nothing about Ellie seemed right. Matt wanted to believe that was the adrenaline, her body trying to process everything that had happened today, same as him, but everything about her seemed off. From the wild look in her eyes to the way she was rambling off thoughts so quickly. She was normally one of the calmest people Matt knew, even under stress. It was one of the things he admired most about her, but something had snapped. She was broken. Or was it him? "Have you lost it? Have I? I have no idea anymore. I'm not sure I'd recognize sane or crazy. Maybe we're all off the rails and just don't know it." He looked up at her. "They shot at me out on 112, too. I didn't see anyone, but it was probably those same soldiers. Happened when I went out there looking for you."

"When was that?"

Matt told her.

"So you haven't seen the fencing," she pondered. "That went up later."

"What fencing?"

"At least twelve feet high topped with razor wire and electrified. I don't know where it starts, or how the hell they got it up so fast, but I think it completely circles town, maybe the entire valley. Only way in or out is at the highway, and they've got a double gate there, guards posted everywhere. I walked maybe a mile of it before heading back here."

"Can you lower the gun, Ellie?"

She didn't. The barrel continued to twitch in his direction as she went on. "They're not normal soldiers, Matt. The uniforms are all wrong. No name tags or rank insignia. Strange colors. I think they're private contractors, but I don't see how anyone could mobilize that fast. All I know is they're containing this, whatever this is." Her eyes somehow managed to grow wider, and she looked toward the door. "Are you alone?"

"Ellie, please put the gun down."

"You didn't answer my question."

Matt almost lied to her, but that wouldn't do any good. She'd see the others soon enough. "I've got Gabby with me, and Josh Tatum." He paused for a second, but there was no easy way to say it, so he just spit it out. "Ellie, Sally's dead."

This time, the barrel of the shotgun dropped and her mouth fell open. "What? How?"

Matt told her.

Told her everything.

He rattled it off as quickly as he could.

When he finished, Ellie rounded the recliner and fell into the cushioned seat, resting the shotgun on her lap. Matt told her what Sally had said before she died—delayed internet searches, filtered results. How she thought someone was reading her emails before allowing them to go through. "I thought she was just being paranoid, but I think she was right. Whoever locked down the town is also monitoring all our communications."

A creak came from above, movement on the second floor.

Matt was still holding his gun. He raised it and pointed it toward the stairs. "Is someone else here?"

Before Ellie could respond, Addie Gallagher came down the steps wrapped in a towel. She was drying her hair with another. "Thanks for letting me use your shower, Ellie. I was a—" At the sight of Matt, she froze and blushed. "Hey."

"What are you doing here?"

Addie held up her right arm. It was wrapped in gauze just above her wrist. "I was walking home and Ellie's neighbor jumped out of the bushes screaming, came at me with a knife. If Ellie hadn't been there, I might be dead right now."

Matt recalled what Ellie had told him when he came in. "Butcher knife, next door?"

Ellie nodded. "It was like she was rabid, the way she charged."

Matt didn't have to ask how she stopped her. The look that passed between both women told him she was dead. The hows didn't much matter at this point.

Gabby appeared in the open doorway. "Josh keeps insisting we move your car before Stu Peterson sees it, and I think he's right. I'm gonna take it and go look for Riley. She must be …" Her voice trailed off at the sight of Addie half naked on the stairs.

Addie turned slowly on her heels and started back up. "I think I'd better get dressed."